The most important aspect of any organization is its people and its culture. Your people are the key to breaking the gridlock. Sadly, they are most likely to be causing the stoppage somewhere up ahead. It could be for many reasons—they could be afraid of risk, or perhaps they are not in an empowered position, or worse yet, in over their head. In the evolving digital world, people need to be organized in the right way to have a fighting chance.

The first step to breaking the gridlock at your organization is to assess your organizational chart as it relates to digital. The goal of this assessment is to identify the people who are currently driving your online offerings. For many years, any technology or online products have been pushed into departments that aren't necessarily the right place but the closest fit at the time. ATMs pushed into payments, home banking is often found in IT, even sometimes marketing, and now analytics seems to be getting forced into the accounting division.

It's OK to temporarily house a new, emerging, or evolving channel or service in the closest fitting area, but it must be reviewed to make sure it doesn't deserve an area of its own. This challenge often leads to difficulties for the program owners to get the resources they need and to be understood by their leadership. Here is a great example: If every time your analytics people need a new tool (this is an evolving arena, and as such, new tools come out every day), they have to explain how the tool works and what they are going to use it for to three or four different people, they are going to eventually leave your organization, and if they don't, they are either really nice people (rare) or subpar analytics experts who cannot find another job. A true expert doesn't like to have to repeatedly explain the need for tools to people who don't understand what they are trying to explain. They expect the leadership to understand their needs and work with them. They are usually passionate about what they do and feel demoralized when they feel as though they are being prevented from doing their job. I want to be clear: I am not saying that an analytics expert should have carte blanche for all of the things they want without oversight, just that they should have leadership that understands what they are saying and knows how to access the request.

Accessing your organizational chart to determine who is handling your digital offerings is the first step to breaking gridlock. Figure 10.1 is a common top-level org chart I see at many banks and credit unions.

There are many missing roles, among the most notable a chief digital officer (CDO) and a chief analytics officer (CAO). Usually, when I am called in to review an organization such as this, I quickly discover that these roles are not missing, they are just buried in the various departments. For instance, the chief digital officer might be buried in the chief technology officer's organization, or a chief analytics officer is buried in the chief financial officer's organization, or even in marketing. Once we track down the individuals responsible for these roles, we usually find that they are woefully understaffed and usually not empowered. A twenty-first-century organizational chart must have a role for digital services and analytics that reports directly to the CEO.

Common Symptoms of People Problems

Human Solutions

To solve these problems, you need to address your people. They are at the center of your solution.

Data Is Money

Data is money. It is a simple truth. If you put this book down right now and don't read any further and all you walk away with is this statement, you will be better off.

When you think of it in these terms, you will think twice when your staff comes to you about budgeting for higher storage costs to preserve data. When data is purged, it's like burning money. The second reason you need a CAO is because this person is going to be part of your business strategy and will work very closely with your CDO. This can be the difference between succeeding or failing on digital initiatives.

One way to think of it is like this. If banking were a fishing boat, opening branches would be like throwing a huge net out to catch fish. It's effective and you do catch a lot of fish, but you also catch a lot of boots, old tires, and other things. Also, you can't be sure of the type of fish that you catch and the quality. Digital is like spearfishing, dropping down into the ocean looking for a special fish that is worth more to your organization. You can catch 10 of these fish and it would be worth 30 days of fishing with a net and be less work for your boat workers to clean. (FYI, I am not a fisherman by any means.) Your CAO will help identify which of the fish in the sea you want, where to fish, and what kind of bait you need, and your CDO will go out and catch them.

OK, so you have bought in and you believe me, and you just did a Google search or asked your HR person, and you discovered that each of these positions are expensive and difficult to fill, and as a result you fainted and had to be revived by your staff. Once you woke up, you also realized that neither of these are one-man departments, which has made the expense that much higher in your mind. Never fear: That is what this book is for.

If the CDO or CAO position is too expensive for you, there are evolving services and consultants who will come in and help you with digital strategy. They can place boots on the ground at your organization and play this role. I would argue that it won't be as effective as having someone on staff full time, but it is better than not doing anything. This can be much more cost-effective because you are sharing this individual with other organizations, and as a result the person is usually a very high level and qualified professional. Second, these companies often have the necessary resources to support the positions they are filling within your organization. This approach can be very valuable because it allows your organization to learn how these positions will work within the organization without hiring a FTE right off the bat. You can learn from how these groups operate, what works and what doesn't work in your culture, as well as what level of expertise is needed to fill these roles. You can also find your shortcomings. For instance, the acting CAO consultant may come to your executive group and report that your data aren't in a usable format, and that before anything can be done, the data must be scrubbed and cleaned (just like the fish analogy) and yes, these are actual words they will use. The CDO may come to your executive team and announce that many of your systems aren't prepared for digital in that they aren't accessible via a normal digital means and that these systems must either be replaced or retrofitted to fit into a digital ecosystem. Finding this out ahead of hiring someone (ostensibly forever) is a good thing. These problems will be dealt with by your IT department or the departments who are responsible for these systems. If you were building a house, you wouldn't want to bring in the painters until the walls were finished; otherwise, they will stand around and charge you for doing nothing.

The second approach, if you cannot afford to hire consultants, is to grow your own. Your current CTO may be a perfect fit to become a CDO and may even long to do this job. However, you must be careful not to expect this person to be a CIO and CDO at the same time. If you are going to grow a CDO internally, I would suggest that the first thing you do is to tell this person to replace themselves. In Chapter 1, I mentioned my mentor Tom Bennett at Suncoast, and that he often gave me life advice. Another great piece of advice he gave me was this: “If you want to advance, the first thing you have to do is replace yourself.” This ran counter to what I was thinking at the time. I was all wrapped up in learning new systems and making myself indispensable because no one else could do what I could do. After Tom gave me this advice, I realized he was right. I started the very next day by holding an impromptu class for anyone who wanted to learn how to set up new users on our newly installed network. I found this to be invigorating, I enjoyed teaching, and the others were happy to learn. After that, I moved up quickly. It was easy because there was always someone who was excited to do my old job. I would encourage this line of thinking within any banking organization, and especially if you are looking to grow your own executives. This approach has the added value of creating cohesion between the outgoing CIO and the new CIO (likely trained by the outgoing person) and thus fostering better teamwork between them. The second thing to do is give them free reign to buy books, take classes online, and go to conferences to learn to become a CDO. When I give this advice, I often hear people say, yes, but what if they leave us? My answer is always the same—but what if we never train them and they stay? If you are concerned about this, there are things you can do to protect your organization from investing in individuals only to have them leave, such as offering a bonus for completing the course, or having them sign something stating that they will stay for a certain amount of time.

Finally, and this is the most important thing to do, I have found that in the banking industry, everyone knows everyone, and that usually CEOs and other executives have friends at other banks. So send this person to one of these other organizations where you know there is good digital leadership and have them spend time learning what the CDO does at that organization. It doesn't even have to be a banking organization. As a matter of fact, if you have access to someone in a different industry, say health care or investments, all the better. Have them provide a report of their findings and ask them to write down what can be applied at your organization, and when they come back, review it with the entire executive team.

Once you have grown this individual, you can start him or her out as one-man departments by allowing them to outsource their needs. This can be very cost-effective, and again has the added advantage of allowing for learning on the job. A CAO, for instance, will likely need to have a data scientist available. If you thought the CDO and CAO were expensive, Google what a data scientist makes. OK, I apologize for making you faint again (I should've warned you), but I wanted to see the look in your eyes just before you passed out. Yes, these resources are expensive, but ask yourself why. I would reason that it is because they are effective and as such, in high demand. So this is another opportunity for outsourcing; the key is having someone who understands the area running the rodeo. A CAO will know what questions and what key things to put a data scientist consultant to work on. An experienced CDO can work wonders by outsourcing digital initiatives to experienced firms while working hand in hand with your organization to integrate the results.

So to recap, I can't stress enough the importance of these positions in terms of digital transformation. You can think of both these positions as the guardians of your digital future.